Same situation for me.
I find the philosophy to be too judgemental, and the belief that Quality is the metaphysical key to the understanding of the world seems really overstretched.
The idea isn’t about that quality is important though. It is that, even though people feel it is important, no one has been able to rationalize it or measure it. And that sometimes we act and talk as if we can.
I’m not sure why you keep denigrating it as a couch philosophy. Just curious, are you doing that because you have worked through philosophies from academia or the classics?
I think you're right about the whole of her philosophy. I think she has a firm grasp of epistemology, but fails to lay out a well reasoned metaphysical and ethical philosophy.
My point is, why believe that philosophy has merit, or that you'd be able to distinguish the good parts from the bad parts? (And if you are able to distinguish good from bad philosophy, why would you need an existing religion as a starting point?)
Good point, I'm basing my rejection on my repulsive feeling. I'm not familiar with philosophy but I'm sure there are philosophers that have built up arguments on why a life based on seeking truth and logic is worthwhile.
> Reality is subjective and so should philosophy be.
There is no reason to believe reality is subjective. If it was, why would you appeal to a shared, objective reality to convince us otherwise? Even if it was, that still wouldn't mean that philosophy "should" be. Declaring what something "is" doesn't show you how it "ought" to be.
> Nobody knows what is going on here and anyone that thinks they do is lying.
Of course nobody has a perfect knowledge of it all, so lets not pretend this is an "all or nothing" deal. There are an awfully lot of well informed people who have learned quite a bit about the human experience, better and worse ways of navigating through life, and take great pleasure in sharing that hard-earned knowledge.
> What is right for me may not be right for you. Learn what is right for you through trial and error.
You mean you like vanilla and I like chocolate, right? Or do you mean to say for one person it can be legitimately "right" to exploit others (emotionally, economically, whatever) so long as their experiences affirm it to them?
> Failure is the best teacher to find out something will not work.
No, finding and learning from good teachers (and/or those who already made some mistakes) are the best teachers. Failure is necessary, as there is no trying without failure, but it is not inherently a superior model for learning.
> Nobody should follow anyone else. You should be the leader of your own life as it is your experience.
Of course at the end of the day you need to build and put trust in yourself as the architect of your own life, but attempting to do that without ever following and emulating others you admire (friends, families, figureheads, and even celebrities) is pure folly.
> The goal is not self indulgent thinking, the goal is to stop thinking.
This is an awful lot of thinking to convince people to not think. Is this also not self-indulgent? Every statement is about "you, your experience, your subjective reality" and push you to close yourself off from working with others to figure life out.
> To go with the flow.
How do you both discount having faith in others to support you (e.g. nobody knows, learn whats right for you, nobody should follow) and go with the flow?
> To trust in yourself and believe that you can do what you set your mind to. To remove the fear of I cant and the fear of failure.
Amen! The worst part of thinking you can't and that its not worth trying is that you might just convince yourself you're right and created a self-fulfilling prophecy.
> It is as simple as that, no philosopher or book can tell you that. Only experience can.
I'm afraid I must revert to disagreeing. Philosophers (both the kind who call themselves that and those who are too practical to don such a title) and books can create worlds and scenarios that challenge us intellectually and emotionally to question the current boundaries of what to accept and reach for in life.
> You can read all the books in the world, but you do not gain any true understanding until you put words into action and actually experience it.
Amen again! As Hamlet said "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.". All the ideas and dreams in the world are useless until to attempt to put them into action.
This book is extremely opinionated. When I first started reading philosophy it seemed great, once I learned about a few philosophers in depth I lost all respect for Russel.
Exactly. I really think Philosophy is like religious gurus confusing the listeners with confidence and as though only they can understand but not put in clear words.
There's a difference between a work being a result of philosophical genius and a work producing in the reader a philosophical experience.
As someone who studied philosophy, I felt that his proof for the existence of quality lacking. He appealed to a small sample, his class, in order to ground the existence of quality which is simply a hasty generalization.
However, I did feel something of a philosophical experience when he raised the issue of classic vs. romantic. He took pains to give examples and I feel that we all have to figure out this problem.
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